She's been through the fire before

Ragged Old Flag

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town".
I said, "Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hangin' on it"
He said, "Have a seat", and I sat down,
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town?"
I said, "I think it is."
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
and It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing "Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson
tugging at its seams.
and It almost fell at the Alamo
beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
That Ragged Old Flag

"On Flanders Field in World War I,
She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp, and low, a time or two,
She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent
by her Uncle Sam.
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam
and now they've about quit wavin' back here at home
in her own good land here She's been abused,
She's been burned, dishonored, denied an' refused,
And the government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearin' thin,
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and I believe she can take a whole lot more.

"So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought
I do like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
That Ragged Old Flag"

---

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I heard this song on the radio tonight and a memory came to mind.

Before I tell you the first story, I need to tell you something. I am not a Fourth of July person. My dogs are terrified all weekend, and I'm not a hot weather or blowing stuff up kind of a person.

However, I do enjoy me some Johnny Cash. I heard this song on the radio tonight, and I started thinking about the most patriotic moments in my life.

I tried to wear red, white and blue today. The best outfit I came up with was a tank top with aqua, red, white, and light pink stripes with a blue cardigan over it.

Pathetic, I know.

The story I'm about to tell you involves a story about our flag, the Pledge of Allegiance and Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA.

It also involves the past and an ex, but that's the way life goes. Sometimes memories creep up in unexpected places.

So, here we go. Other than Eric Church concerts, here is the most patriotic moment of my life.

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The year was 2018, before the Coronavirus and before anything bad really happened to me in life.

I was stupid happy, mostly just stupid, but also happy as well. We'll get to that point later. Or maybe we won't. We'll see where thishereblogpost goes.

So, in 2018, I went on a weekend trip with the guy that I was dating to Oklahoma City. After a concert one night, we found ourselves at a piano bar in Bricktown.

We went back to it the second night we were there, too. It was that much fun.

Anyway, this story involves the first night at that piano bar. The concert we went to was good, at a cool little theater in a hipster neighborhood. What better way to celebrate good music than with good music at a piano bar downtown?

In case anybody doesn't know this about me, I think Oklahoma City was my first love in life. I grew up going on vacation there and I interned there in college.

The fact that I took a love interest to my favorite city was a big deal to me at the time.

Anyway, me and my love interest are at this piano bar downtown in my favorite city, ever. We had just gone on a tour of the canal downtown, and I'm remembering all of the moments of my childhood, playing putt putt golf and playing in the arcades downtown.

The piano bar we went to were playing typical bar songs. I remember Sweet Caroline playing, and I remembered thinking to all the times I belted out the lyrics at the top of my lungs.

It was a good night.

I'm trying to remember, here. The drinks were flowing and I remember thinking about stupid happy I was at that moment.

Well past midnight, around closing time, the two pianists started playing an unexpected song. Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA starts playing, and pretty soon a bar full of drunk lovers, bachelor and bachelorette party attendees stand up, take their hats off their heads and start belting the song out loud.

Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land

God bless the USA

---

If I remember the story right, right after that song played, someone stood up and starting reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

So, what do you do when you find yourself in a bar at 1 a.m. downtown in a beautiful city with a beautiful man?

The only correct answer to that: You stand up, put your hand on your heart and you recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Was it kind of weird at the time? Yes. Was it the most patriotic thing that ever happened to me? Definitely.

And that's the most GO USA YOU ROCK story I can come up with at the moment.

Happy birthday, America!

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*This story really needs to be replaced with an Eric Church story. Next tour, I'm buying an American flag scarf and wearing it to his concert.

Memories

I couldn't tell you what year it was. It was more than 10 years ago, I know that. Maybe I was just finishing high school, or just starting college?

Anyway, I laugh at this memory every year on the Fourth of July.

When I was living at my Mom and Dad's house, a dog came into our garage because she was scared of the fireworks.

I remember her being a medium sized dog, maybe a Sheltie. She was cute, and we could tell that her owner was a woman.

She clinged to me that night, and I let her.

The dog had vet tags, but no other identification on who she belonged to. The vet's office was closed, as it was a holiday, so my Mom and I decided to keep her overnight and try to find her owners the next day.

The dog slept in bed with me that night.

We did find her owners the next day. The owner, a woman, said she spent the whole night looking for her dog.

I think it's funny, in a way. The dog ran away from home, and got to sleep in a comfy bed next to a warm body.

If you're a dog and you're going to run away, you better run away to a Springer house.

I think about that dog around this time every year. If one of my dogs ever runs away (Pickles does this very, very often, but she always comes back) I hope they run away to a house as compassionate about animals as the house I grew up in.

I wonder if the universe hates me sometimes.

If you don't like poop, don't read this.

I can handle a lot of things in life, but the one thing that I can't handle is poop.

This week has been very, very poopy.

Let me start off by saying that the Fourth of July sucks if you're a dog. I noticed that a certain dog in my life seemed kind of stinky on Thursday night. I tried to make her go outside, but she was panting, pacing back and fourth and panicking about the fireworks going off.

Fine then, dog, don't go outside. See if I care.

About 10 minutes later, she came back to me and was even more frantic than she was before.

I stepped out into the room to see what she was freaking out about, and I stepped in something mushy.

Something warm and mushy.

DOG!

I turned the light on, and my worst fears were confirmed. To put it mildly, the dog was very upset.

She was very upset ALL OVER THE ROOM.

There's no use in getting mad at her, so I put my adult pants on, gagged and threw up a little in the process, and cleaned the mess up.

Lovingly stolen from Facebook.

My main goal at this point is to not get mad at the dog, but to attempt to save the carpet. Please dear baby Jesus, let me clean this mess up and not ruin a room full of carpet in the process.

One carpet cleaner I have doesn't work. It puts down the soapy water, but it doesn't pick it back up.

I wonder if the universe hates me sometimes.

After confirming the fact that it didn't work, I dragged another one out that finally did work. I haven't used it very much, and I'm not familiar with it enough to know how to get the water out.

I fumbled with it, got the plastic water thing out, then dropped the plastic container full of dirty, disgusting water on the floor. Of course, it came apart on impact and spilled all over the floor.

THE EFFING FLOOR THAT I JUST CLEANED.

I put my hair in a ponytail. You know shit's serious when the hair goes in a ponytail, people.

At midnight thirty on Friday morning, the situation was finally under control and the smell in my casa no longer made me want to toss my cookies.

I'm going to end this by saying that I don't feel good and I slept exactly zero hours on Wednesday night.

Life can be so shitty sometimes.